keeping koi, building koi ponds and landscaping around koi ponds in Minnesota

It’s Memorial Day Weekend and once again the Greater Louisville Koi and Goldfish Society is hosting their annual show – 3821 Hunsinger Lane, Louisville, KY. It’s always a fun show and I feel a lot of people turn out for it. There’s always a lot of enthusiasm for this event. This year I’m attending as…

It’s a pretty cold day outside – maybe in the low 50s. Little Siberian weather is challenging. The pond builder always needs a project so today he decided to reroute the auto fill line to the lower pond, fiddling with something electrical to the pond, burying some drain lines, leveling more ground and planting seeds,…

The pond builder often comments that we have indoor koi. During a ‘normal’ year, our koi go outside the first weekend of May and come back in the first weekend of November. This year winter has hung around longer than usual but this week we finally had a day of 80 degree weather. The outdoor…

When Spring returns to Minnesota, the pond builder and I often over-do. We have ambitious weekend plans and the time flies by. When you feel like you have run out of gas, you realize you have been working outside for eight hours. (Or if you are the pond builder, it’s more like 11 hours.) The…

A few days of weather in the low 70s and we can get a lot done. The pond builder installed the FlowFriend pump that we purchased last year from Koi Acres. It’s made in Germany, runs quietly and supposed to be energy efficient – not sure if it’s going to make a dent in the…

Winter storm Wesley blew through the upper midwest a few days ago and dropped a few inches of snow. The temperatures are warming up quickly so it’s not too miserable. Just a large number of sticks to pick up in the yard. The koi are very much into eating again. Depending on the weather,…

Pond builder and I have been busy in the yard all weekend. 45 bags of mulch, 20+ bags of leaves and yard crud, 75 fertilizer sticks and most important – refilling the upper pond. We emptied the water from the upper pond into the lower pond and then pumped out across our front yard. The…

This past weekend I had the privilege to be a student judge at the 2019 Central Koi and Goldfish Show. If you are ever in Orlando in March, this is a great show to experience koi and goldfish. You can’t beat the weather, particularly if you live in Little Siberia…and the show is really big….

It’s finally feeling like spring and we’ve been able to do a few things outdoors. Spring tree pruning was on my calendar and the pond digger tidied up some of the lower branches of our birches. I unwrapped some of the evergreens and moved snow off of the branches. The lovely weather marks an annual…

but the koi will stay in the garage a few more weeks. They are all doing very well this winter. The garage itself is about 63-65 degrees and the water is usually around 54 to 56 degrees. No one has gotten sick this winter, no one has tried jumping through the net. The pond digger…

I’m a little behind blogging about the All Japan Koi Show. Hard to believe that only a month ago I was in Japan. I really love visiting Japan – my family in Hiroshima, wonderful food (especially the rice), everyone is quiet and polite on public transportation, so many interesting things to see and hungry koi…

Not. Just thought it was an exciting title for a pretty bland blog post. Maybe when I win the lottery. Sidebar: there are many koi kichi types who regularly spend way more than $10K for a koi. More on that topic another day. Not much happening with my indoor koi. Outdoors, it’s just winter in…

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About me…

I grew up in Southern California and graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1982. I was commissioned a military intelligence officer and served with XVIII ABN Corps (Fort Bragg, NC), 82d ABN Div (Fort Bragg, NC) and 42d FA Bde (Germany). I hold a master's degree in early childhood special education and an administrative endorsement in educational supervision.

I moved to Minnesota in 2010 and married a man who happens to enjoy digging holes and constructing waterfalls. I envision that every spring and summer will be spent puttering around a koi pond. Aside from koi, I enjoy starting random hobbies (trapeze lessons, pottery, sumi-e), gardening, reading a good book, drinking tea and a thousand other things that won't fit into this text box.

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koi and other things I like - follow me on Instagram at #lorivertin

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